I leaned closer, studying the names of the fuel providers listed on the ledger. None of them were companies I remembered from my summers spent filing trip sheets at the terminal.
“Who signed the verification forms?” I asked.
“The system shows a digital authorization from the owner’s terminal,” David said.
He reached into his drawer and pulled out a small brass nameplate, setting it on the table. It was the old one from my desk when I worked as a part-time billing clerk for my father, the letters slightly tarnished.
“This was in the old physical file the bank sent over,” David said. “It was tucked in the back of the original loan application from four years ago.”
I did not touch the brass.
“Keep digging into the vendor list,” I said.
“There is a meeting scheduled with the regional VP at noon,” David said.
I checked my watch.
“We have ninety minutes,” I said.
The glass doors of the lobby swung open, letting in a gust of damp wind and the sound of traffic from the street below.
Chloe stood on the tiled floor, her hair clinging to her cheeks in wet strands. She was twisting her silver ring around her thumb, her face pale.
She saw me and walked quickly across the floor, her wet sneakers squeaking on the polished stone. She threw her arms around my neck, her coat cold and damp against my skin.
“I have been calling you all morning,” Chloe said, her voice rapid and breathless.
I gently pushed her back by her shoulders, looking down at her. Her face was flushed, and she was breathing as if she had run all the way from the parking garage.
“Why are you here, Chloe?” I asked.
“Dad is in the car downstairs,” she said, her chest rising and falling quickly. “He is losing his mind, Emma, he saw your name in that local business profile last week.”
She reached into her canvas bag and pulled out a rolled-up copy of the Ohio Business Journal, its cover damp from the rain. My face was on the third page under a headline about modernizing risk compliance.
“He did not know you owned Aegis,” Chloe said. “He thought you were just a regular employee somewhere, but when he saw the company name on the audit notification this morning, he realized.”
She twisted the ring again, her fingers red from the cold.
